IRAQ DIGEST

Iraq Digest

August 12, 2007|By Tribune news services

GONZALES VISITS: U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales, under fire at home with calls for his resignation, arrived in Baghdad on Saturday for his third trip to the country, the Justice Department announced. Gonzales will be meeting with department officials helping to fashion Iraq's legal system.

BUSH UPBEAT: President Bush cast the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of "encouraging news" in his weekly radio address, emphasizing enemy deaths. "Our new strategy is delivering good results," Bush said. The president said his buildup of U.S. forces in Iraq is taking hold and showing gains, although he acknowledged that Iraq has made frustratingly slow political progress. On Afghanistan, Bush voiced confidence in President Hamid Karzai, with whom he met earlier last week.

TROOP REST: In their weekly radio address, Democrats touted legislation to guarantee troops time at home between deployments to Iraq. Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) criticized Bush for threatening to veto the bill, noting that "the president's surge has sent many of our Army units to Iraq for the second and third time." Tauscher's bill, which passed the House this month on a vote of 229-194, would require that regular military units returning from the war receive at least as much time at home as they spent in Iraq. Reserve units would get a home stay three times as long as they spent in the war zone.

U.S. DEATH: The U.S. military reported the death of a soldier in Tikrit in a non-combat incident. At least 3,685 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the war in March 2003, according to a count by The Associated Press.